Pocket Opera Company

A former airport hangar, a shopping mall, the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds, the turbine hall of a power station – the more unusual the venue and intense the topic the more the Pocket Opera Company Nuremberg moves away from the classic world of opera to that of its audience. The members of this high-quality ensemble are all part of the established world of culture, yet with their engagement at the Pocket Opera Company they stand up for a new form of entertainment: Moving and provocative music theater.

Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” in three hours

In 1974, the Pocket Opera Company Nuremberg was started with the goal of breaking tradition with the world of the classical music theater, parodying it and opening it up to new audiences by presenting works in unusual venues. Illustrious names like Elizabeth Kingdon, Wolfgang Schmidt, Peter B. Wyrsch, David Seaman and Andrea Molino established the international reputation of this award-winning, oldest independent music theater in Germany.

And it is as rebellious and experimental as ever. Singers and musicians and conductor Franz Killer are all crossover artists between musical worlds. Unusual venues are part of the program and often determine the course of a production of the Pocket Opera Company.

Take, for example, the staging of "The Smiling Carcass", a piece about advertising and its effect on society. It began in the Stadttheater Fürth and ended distributed over several stories of a shopping mall.